


Tom Riddle and the Faerie Queen

by Chelonie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Don't copy to another site, Faerie Lights, Fluff, Gen, Generation Mash-up, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Ice Skating, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Just Say No to Erumpent Horns Kids, M/M, Snow, The Power Of Love, True Love's Kiss, Ugly Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21846676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chelonie/pseuds/Chelonie
Summary: It's dangerous to be too close to the Forbidden Forest on the Solstice. No one knows this better than Tom Riddle. But he has a hard time saying no to Luna Lovegood, especially when she drags Harry Potter into her schemes...
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter & Tom Riddle, Luna Lovegood & Tom Riddle
Comments: 24
Kudos: 172





	Tom Riddle and the Faerie Queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writers_Den_Discord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writers_Den_Discord/gifts), [Sablesilverrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sablesilverrain/gifts).



> For the Writer's Den Christmas exchange:  
> Pairings: **Harry/Tom Riddle** OR ~~Harry/Neville OR Harry/Luna~~  
>  Characters: Harry, Tom Riddle ~~/Voldemort~~ , Luna  
> Items: Snow, Ugly Sweaters, Fairy Lights
> 
> (( Join us at the Writer's Den Discord, a friendly chat of writers, readers, betas and friends. <https://discord.gg/G77FbMT> ))

Tom Riddle was holding court in the Slytherin Common Room when he heard a commotion near the entrance. 

“I’m here because the lake has frozen over,” a dreamy voice said.

“I think you’re here for target practice, wouldn’t you agree, Baddock?” Mafalda Prewett smirked.

Three voices swore, five voices called out, “ _Protego!_ ” - Tom made a note of those people so he could thank them later - and twelve people hit Baddock and Prewett with some hex or other. A few moments later, Luna skipped into his sight. Draco Malfoy was levitating the troublemakers in.

“Tom! The lake has frozen over! Hagrid tested it and it’s been declared safe for students!” Luna Lovegood said. She was covered in dust and wearing a wool jumper with a Christmas tree, full of sparkling lights and multi-coloured baubles all over it. Every so often, a niffler would climb the tree and play capture the bauble.

“Sit down, Luna dear, your hair is a mess,” Tom said, wordlessly Vanishing the dust. “Malfoy, I’m not dealing with _that_ now. Explain their errors to them while you take them to the hospital wing.”

“Yes, sir,” Malfoy said. If he flinched a little, it was because he’d made a similar mistake himself. He’d learned a very painful lesson that Luna was not to be touched.

Luna sat on the floor in front of Riddle. Her waist length blonde hair was as tangled as if she hadn’t brushed it this morning, which was almost certainly true. Riddle took off his serpent tie clip and transfigured it into a hairbrush, a transfiguration he’d performed so many times that the snake was absorbing his magic, and beginning to come to life. As he gently untangled her hair, she told him about going to breakfast this morning, and being unable to find Jessica Vaisey, her study partner in Charms.So she and her Gryffindor friends (“Including our favourite Gryffindor of course…”) had gone to find Vaisey, and after a long tale that included a run in with a boggart (“Did you know Harry’s greatest fear is a staircase? He must be very brave to live in a tower”), a litter of kneazles (“I wonder where Mr Norris is. He’s quite a cad to leave Mrs Norris alone with nine children”), and a closet full of holiday jumpers (“The elves said they didn’t belong to anyone, so we each picked one out. Do you like mine? I chose the one with the most sparkles. And I brought you one too!”) they had been told that Hagrid had gone to test the ice on the Black Lake (“I hope the merpeople aren’t too cold underwater”) to make sure it was safe for ice skating.

By the time her story was finished, Tom had brushed out her hair and plaited it.

“Do you have a hair ribbon, Luna dear?” he asked.

“The nargles took them all,” she said.

One day, Luna would give him permission to _destroy_ those Ravenclaws, but until then, he stayed his hand. He sighed and pulled a ribbon out of his bag. He bought a handful for her every time he went to Hogsmeade, and they always disappeared - either through her own absentmindedness or the malice of her housemates.

“Come with me?” she asked. She hadn’t actually said what she wanted to do, but this was their third Christmas together, and he understood her completely by now.

“It’s NEWTs year. I don’t have time for ice skating,” he said.

“Harry will be there,” she said in a sing-song voice, tipping her head back to look at Tom upside down from her spot on the floor.

“It’s dangerous. I don’t like you being out on the Solstice. Sunset will be early.”

“I won’t be in danger if you’re with me,” Luna said.

“You are a _snake_ ,” he said. “How did you ever get sorted into Ravenclaw?”

“My light and sunny disposition,” she said. “Will you come with us? Please?”

“Miss Astoria Greengrass?” he asked. The younger girl startled, having never been spoken to by the Head Boy in her life. “Would you be so kind as to lend Luna some clothing more appropriate to the weather?”

“I’m wearing my new jumper!” Luna said. “Wear yours too, Tom!”

Tom looked at the jumper she had chosen for him. It showed Black Lake - Hogwarts in the background - with ice skating penguins. Occasionally one of them would leap and spin in the air, or even go splat on the ice. 

His first reaction was that there were no penguins anywhere near Hogwarts. His second reaction was to swallow his first reaction, because of course, Luna knew that about penguins. She chose it for him because his human mask still veered too much on the side of literalism, and she thought he could use some more whimsy in his life.

“It’s ridiculous, Luna. I’ll wear it,” he said fondly. “Parkinson, can you please let Warrington and Fawley know that I won’t be able to make our study session today.”

“Sir?” she said. “What should I say if they ask why?”

“The truth,” he said. “Tell them I went ice skating with Miss Lovegood.”

* * *

Luna ran up the marble staircase, and met Harry on his way down, while Tom waited in the Entrance Hall.

“Are you ready?” Harry said. 

“Yup!” she said. She looped her arm in his. “Let’s go!”

When they reached the lake, they found a few students already teetering on the ice. Tom transfigured a bench for them to sit on, then checked Luna’s boots carefully, before transfiguring them into skates. 

“Go on, you menace,” he said. 

Luna stepped carefully through the snow, then glided out on the ice as if she did it every day. 

Tom turned to Harry. “Let me check your boots, Potter.”

“Er…” Harry said. “I don’t have any boots. Just trainers. I thought I’d just…”

“You can’t ice skate in trainers. You need ankle protection,” Tom said brusquely. “Let me see.”

Harry lifted his foot up to rest on the bench. Worn canvas trainers, soaked through. Tom met Harry’s eyes, and saw the green eyes were glaring at him defiantly, daring him to pity him. “Potter, you’re such a muggle sometimes,” Tom muttered. He put his hand over Harry’s foot, and cast a drying charm, and then a warming charm. “You know the _Impervious_ charm - I’ve seen you use it on your glasses. It keeps shoes and clothes waterproof as well.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that,” Harry said. Tom concentrated on growing his trainer until it sprouted up over his ankle, added more eyelets, and lengthened the laces. By the time he finished, there was just enough material remaining to convert into a blade. Tom finished Harry’s other shoe, then noticed that Harry didn’t have a scarf or hat.

“They don’t take care of you at all, do they?” Tom said quietly. He took off his scarf and wrapped it around Harry’s neck. Harry flushed, and Tom regretted saying it. “Mrs Cole is a terrible guardian, but Luna and I get new clothes and shoes every year at least. Well, new to us. They’re used clothes, but they still include things for the winter.”

“I only see my Aunt and Uncle in the summer, so I’m sure it doesn’t occur to them that I need winter clothes,” Harry said. “Won’t you get cold if I wear your scarf?”

“I rarely get cold,” Tom said. He was transfiguring his own boots as they spoke. _Besides, you look good in Slytherin green._

That thought led, as his thoughts so often did, to the thought of Harry wearing nothing but his sheets. Luna thought he should tell Harry how he felt. But Tom would be leaving Hogwarts in six months. Harry was in his OWLs year. Luna was only a third year. If he wanted his plans to work out this summer, then his character had to be unimpeachable. _And I’m not what he thinks I am anyway..._

* * *

Harry inhaled Tom’s scent as he tried his first steps on the ice. He wondered if he could get away with “forgetting” to return the scarf after they returned to the castle. 

Tom had seen his terrible trainers and had somehow known just what to say, calling him ‘such a muggle’ in the same fondly exasperated tone that he often called him a ‘such a Gryffindor’ or ‘you cultural philistine’. The same tone he used when he asked Luna where she’d lost her shoes and if she’d remembered to write her homework. The best part about it was that he didn’t use that tone with anyone else, even though he was Head Boy and often had reason to chide and scold other students. With them he was stern or gentle, as the situation called for, but still distant. Only Harry and Luna were allowed to be close.

Harry took advantage of being a novice on the ice to cling to Tom for balance, while Luna did a strange and lively dance of her own on the other side of the lake, somehow managing a spin. “Did you teach her to do that?” Harry asked.

“She’ll tell you she learned it from a Faerie Prince,” Tom said.

Harry bumped against Tom’s shoulder. “Yes, but I know you’re the Faerie Prince in her stories.” To his surprise, Tom stiffened and stopped his momentum, so that Harry swung around him on the ice.

“What do you know? What has she told you?” Tom asked, his eyes intense.

Harry was bewildered. “That you were already at the orphanage where she was sent the summer before her first year after her parents were killed, that you recognised she was a witch and protected her from the other children, and that she decided after that you were her Faerie Prince.”

Tom relaxed at once, and pushed Harry gently away, letting him slide across the ice. “Let’s see it then,” he said. “What jumper did Luna pick out for you?”

“How do you know I didn’t pick out my own jumper?” Harry asked.

“Because I know Luna,” Tom said. 

Harry opened his cloak to display a hippogriff with an antler hex and a red glowing beak flying around his torso. “It’s probably the one I would have picked out as well.”

“Very you,” Tom agreed. “Now close your cloak before you catch cold. Do you need a warming charm?” 

They skated until Harry’s ankles began to hurt, but Luna was having fun, and it was rare this year to catch Tom doing anything that wasn’t studying or tutoring. Tom was about to celebrate his 18th birthday, making him an adult in the muggle world, so he would no longer have a place at Wool’s Orphanage when the school year was over. Tom wouldn’t speak of his plans after graduation, but Harry knew he worried about leaving Luna behind. And so he worked, obsessively, either studying for his own NEWTs, or tutoring for rich students, so that he could leave school with enough galleons to get started in life. 

The novelty of ice skating had worn off for everyone but the three of them by the time the transfiguration ended, turning their skates back into normal footwear. The sun began to drop behind the hills, and faerie lights started to twinkle in the Forbidden Forest. Harry could see Tom looking out at them with a strange expression on his face, half longing, half fear.

“‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.’” Tom recited.

“Pretty, but what does it mean?” asked Luna, who had clasped her arm with Tom’s.

“It means that one day, after he’s kept all his promises to his dear ones, he’ll return to the forest on the darkest night of the year, and he’ll let the Wild call to him,” Tom said. 

“I thought it was about death,” Harry said.

Harry remembered a certain mirror he had once encountered in the Room of Requirement, that was lovely, dark and deep, and held the parents who had been taken from him before he was old enough to remember them. 

He was a third year then, and Luna was a first year, both of them orphans. So he had taken Luna to the mirror, and she had seen her own parents in the mirror. They went together every night, until Tom Riddle, the prefect, caught them after curfew. Harry had been on the verge of making up a lie, but Luna had already befriended Tom at their orphanage, and decided that she must lead him directly to the mirror. 

Tom took one look at the mirror, and _hissed_ at it, making it go dark. “That mirror _lies_ ,” he said. “It’s draining your souls.” He went to Professor Slughorn, who reported it to the Department of Mysteries. Slughorn told Tom later that it was the horcrux of Emeric the Evil, and if Harry and Luna had spent enough time in front of it, it would have brought the feared Dark Lord back to life while draining them of their souls.

That was how Harry and Tom became acquainted - by Tom saving Harry’s life. Or soul. Whichever. And Tom frequently reminded Harry that he was an idiot Gryffindor. 

But the three of them remained friends, despite being different Houses and different years. Harry had lost his parents to blood purist terrorists. Luna’s father had mistaken an erumpent horn for a crumple horned snorkack horn and both parents had died in an explosion a month before Luna had arrived at Hogwarts. Tom was also an orphan, but he never spoke of his parents. Harry had learned to never ask.

But they understood one another in a way the other students, with parents and siblings and loved ones at home, never could. Or perhaps it was only because of Luna. Harry couldn’t deceive himself that Tom would spend any time at all with him if she weren’t around. 

“Perhaps that is what he meant. But all true poets have some Fae blood, and they feel the Wild Hunt calling, even if they don’t understand what it means,” Tom said. “We should go inside. It’s not safe to be out on the Solstice.”

“Why not?” Harry asked. He had bent over to cast _Impervious_ on his canvas shoes. 

“Because of the faeries,” Luna said.

“They don’t look very scary,” Harry said stubbornly. The forest looked beautiful with snowfall and twinkling lights. Inviting and lovely.

“I’d rather face werewolves, dementors, and giants all at once than face a single Fae,” Tom said. “Let’s _go.”_

* * *

Just then, a gust of wind blew snow into their faces so that they couldn’t see anything for a moment. When it died away, Luna quickly took Tom’s hand and looked for Harry. 

Harry wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at a deer that was a few steps away from them, almost close enough to touch. Luna caught her breath at the doe's beauty. She was perfectly formed, and beautiful in colouring, and yet, somehow, Luna could not match this doe with any deer species extant in Scotland, mundane or magical.

Harry seemed entranced. His hand was outstretched and he took a step towards the deer. She skipped away, but only a few steps, allowing him to catch up. They were both getting dangerously close to the Forest, and Luna wondered why Tom hadn’t said anything. She looked up in his face, and found Tom’s face frozen - encased in ice.

“HARRY!” Luna shouted. 

“Luna, hush, you’ll frighten her!” Harry called, without looking back. 

_It’s a trap. It’s a trap and she’s caught both of them, but somehow I’m free and I don’t know what to do?_

Luna raced after Harry and grabbed his hand. “Don’t go in the Forest!” she pleaded with Harry. 

“Luna! Remember when I told you that my father was a Stag Animagus? I think this might be my mother!” Harry said. 

“No! It’s a trap!” Luna cried, tugging at him with all her strength. “Look at Tom!”

But Harry shook her off and took three more steps, until he was under the boughs of the Forbidden Forest. He reached out for the doe just as she transformed, a strong magical blast sending him to his hands and knees, as the doe became a woman with unnatural beauty and triumph in her eyes.

Behind Luna, she heard a loud crack as Tom was freed of his icy imprisonment. Luna felt his strong arms grab her from behind, pulling her back.

“As you can see, you ignorant Gryffindor, that isn’t your mother. It’s _mine_ ,” Tom said, sounding more defeated than Luna had ever heard him. “I’m only half human, and my mother is the Faerie Queen.”

* * *

Harry looked up at the woman, and he could see where Tom got some of his unearthly beauty from. 

“I do like to see a wizard on his knees for me,” the queen purred. She took Harry’s chin in her hands. “Such lovely eyes. Perhaps I’ll keep you.”

Harry tried to get to his feet, but found he couldn’t move. “Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t want to be -”

“ _Silencio!”_ Luna cried, and Harry knew why. He remembered stories that Tom had told them about how mortals could get in deep trouble with faeries by speaking the wrong words, and he was at this queen’s mercy. Suddenly he remembered Tom saying how terrified he would be to face a single Fae, and he wondered if Tom was thinking specifically of _this_ Fae. He couldn’t expect love or mercy from her simply because she was Tom’s mother. That wasn’t how faeries worked.

The unearthly woman ( _faerie woman!)_ took hold of Harry by the arm and lifted him to his feet as lightly as if he were a kitten, and before he could think of escape, he had a blade at his throat. “He’s a lovely boy. Almost as pretty as your father, Tam-lin,” the Faerie Queen said. “I’d been hoping to ensnare your little gold haired friend, but I think I’ll enjoy this one quite as much.”

“Mother, what do you want for him?”

She laughed, and Harry thought the sound was beautiful and cruel at the same time. “Oh Tam-lin, darling, if you return with me, you can have use of him whenever you like.”

“I’m not like you! I’m not a _rapist_ , Mother!” Tom hissed.

 _And that had been part of the tales as well, hadn’t it?_ Harry realised. Oh Tom had tried to be careful not to be too explicit in front of Luna, but he had been clear that when Faeries decided to take someone as a lover, they would enchant them if they were not willing. 

“It’s similar to _Imperius_ ,” Tom had said. “The victims are happy - so so happy. And very willing. But once the spell breaks, they remember everything, but they also remember that they didn’t want to go.”

Now, unable to move or speak, with a knife at his throat, and the fear of being stolen by this woman who was beautiful but colder than ice and snow, Harry knew his boggart would never be the cupboard under the stairs again.

* * *

From the moment Queen Merope had appeared, Tom had pushed Luna behind his back. She had been able to silence Harry, but after that, only clung to Tom and peered from around him. 

_What dispels faeries?_ Luna tried to remember. Bread, iron, salt, four-leafed clover, running water. They weren’t likely to find any of that out here, on the frozen border of the Forbidden Forest. Tom never used iron. His tie clip and buttons were made of pewter. The ice skates he’d transfigured were sharpened bone. Because Tom couldn’t touch iron, Luna didn’t wear iron either. 

Except… she wasn’t wearing her own clothes today, was she? Astoria Greengrass had loaned her outerwear! Luna touched the clasp of the beautiful fur lined cloak she was wearing, but feared it was silver. But a few inches away, was a brooch - a gold Christmas tree - and the pin that held it in place would certainly be steel.

Luna removed the brooch with a quiet charm, then placed the tree in Tom’s gloved hand, with the pin sticking out. “Steel.” she whispered.

“I suppose I would exchange this one for the golden haired maid, Tam-lin,” Queen Merope was saying.

“That’s not my name!” Tom said. He made a gesture to Luna, and she stepped out from behind him, drawing the queen’s eye while Tom dropped his wand to the snow. 

“Why do you call him Tam-lin?” Luna asked. “Is that like the ballad of Tam-lin?”

She knew it was. Tom had told her about his father, a human man who was abducted by the Faerie Queen, until she tired of him and decided to use him for the Solstice sacrifice. In the ballad, Tam-lin is saved by a mortal woman who is pregnant with his child. 

If Tom’s father had ever slipped away long enough to impregnate a human, Tom had never heard of it. All that he knew was that he was a child when he saw his father killed, and when he raged against it, his mother expelled him from Faerie. 

“Tom is a common name. A mortal name. My heir deserves better.”

“But Tam is only the Scottish variation of Tom,” Luna said. “Though I suppose Tam-lin gives it a little lilt, it still isn’t a faerie name like Oberon or Finvarra or Barley Shadowfoot or…”

At that moment, Tom leapt at Queen Merope, stabbing at the hand that was holding the knife. It was ludicrous to try to fight with a brooch, but Merope screamed as if her hand was dipped in acid.

“Harry, run!” Luna shouted. She knew he was enough of a Gryffindor to want to stay and fight, but there was no winning a fight with the Queen of the Faeries. It helped that Tom shoved him at the same time. Once he was no longer in contact with Merope, the spell that was binding him broke. Luna grabbed Harry’s arm and dragged him along. “Don’t look back.”

“But Tom…” Harry said.

“He’s behind us!” Luna said. 

“He’s not!”

They got to the top of the hill, and finally, Luna dared to turn around.

All the faeries were gone.

And so was Tom.

* * *

Luna dropped to the snow and wailed. He was gone. Her brother was gone. And she would never ever see him again. It was worse than losing her Mum and Papa, because she knew she would be with them in the afterlife. If Tom was with the Faerie Queen, he might live forever.

She was dimly aware that Harry was trying to say something, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. There was no hope. 

And then she was silenced by a snowball to the face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to slap you,” Harry said. “But we can’t freak out now. You know more about this than I do. You actually knew his mother was the Faerie Queen! Tell me how we get him back!”

Luna blinked at him as she wiped the snow off her face. “There’s no way. She’s the Faerie Queen. It’d be like putting a couple of mice against Hagrid.”

“Remember the Tri-Wizard championship last year, and the dragon task? The champions didn’t have to fight the dragon, just steal something from her. That’s what we have to do,” Harry said.

Luna thought about it a moment. “Do you love him?”

“Er… Luna…”

Luna took him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. “Love! The one power the Faerie Queen knows not is love! Do you love him? Or do you only fancy him? What would it mean to you if you never saw him again?”

Harry swallowed hard, then lifted his chin. “I wouldn’t accept it. He came into my life calling me a stupid, ignorant Gryffindor, saving my life and yours, and insisting that we both get better at magic. Better at everything. He understands what it is to live without parents, and now I understand why he always understood being ashamed of my guardians. He never offered me one drop of pity, because he knew I would have spit it back in his face. But all this time he was your Faerie Prince. You knew that about him.”

“He didn’t tell me, but I spend every summer with him,” Luna said. “I noticed things.”

“He wouldn’t have told me,” Harry guessed.

“He was _afraid_ of telling you,” Luna said. “You know how half-humans are seen.”

“Not by me!” Harry said. “I’m friends with Hagrid, Remus, Fleur…”

“You’ve never dated anyone with creature blood. _I_ know it's because you’ve hardly dated anyone! But _Tom_ thinks he isn’t good enough for you,” Luna said.

Harry stared at Luna, gobsmacked. “Tom thinks…” He clutched Tom’s scarf, pulling it close, and trying to catch Tom’s scent - but a day of skating outside in the wind had left it smelling of clean, cold air. “How could _he_ not be good enough for _me_? He’s perfect!”

Luna hugged Harry tightly and kissed him on the cheek. “Summon him.”

“What?”

“Just try it.”

“ _Accio_ Tom Riddle.” Harry wasn’t expecting anything to happen, and nothing did.

“Not like that! Summon him with your _heart_! With all the love you have for him.” She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. “With all the love we both have for him.”

Harry really concentrated this time, and focused on how much he loved Tom. How much Luna loved him. How much they both needed him. How they wouldn’t be able to go on without him.

“ _ACCIO_ TOM RIDDLE!” he roared. 

He knew something was happening. He could feel the pull on his magic. And he looked towards the forest, where a small faerie light shot out from the trees towards them. He was a seeker - this was easy - but it helped that Luna added a cushioning charm so that when he scooped the faerie out of the sky there was no chance of harming him.

He had caught a tiny, winged Tom Riddle, who glowed a dim green, but whose eyes were closed in enchanted sleep. Harry cradled him carefully in his hands.

“How do we wake him?” Harry asked. “Can we take him to the Infirmary? Does Madam Pomfrey know he’s a faerie?”

Luna hugged Harry. “Silly boy. How is the enchanted person always awakened in a faerie tale?”

Harry raised the sleeping Tom to his lips and kissed him, as softly as he could.

* * *

_“Sleep. Sleep for a thousand years!”_ his mother had screamed at him.

_No! No! I’ll never see Harry or Luna again!_

But it seemed the next moment, he was being awakened by True Love’s Kiss, and it wasn’t given by Luna, who he knew loved him beyond life and reason, but by Harry. 

_Harry!_

Harry, who now knew what he was. Who knew what his mother was. Maybe he didn't know everything, but was it enough? For a start?

_I could have lost him today. Forever._

And with that thought, he returned to his full human form, lying atop Harry in the snow, and he finished the kiss that Harry had started. He was aware that Luna was clapping her mittened hands, but that mattered less than the weight of Harry’s arms reaching around him and pulling him closer, the shape of Harry’s body underneath his, the taste of Harry’s mouth. He raised up on his elbows and looked down into Harry’s eyes.

“You idiot Gryffindor!” Tom said. They all knew that meant ‘I love you.’

“I know!” Harry protested. And none of them doubted that that meant ‘I love you too.’

## Epilogue

It was three weeks after the end of the school year. Tom’s graduation meant that he couldn’t live at Wool’s Orphanage any longer, but he had visited Luna twice. Both visits were hurried, and though she could tell that he still cared as much for her as ever, he seemed to be working on a big project that he couldn't tell her about.

The third visit, however, she was called to Mrs Cole’s office, where Tom was there along with Mr Stimson from the Department of Children’s Welfare at the Ministry of Magic. She remembered him from that awful time after her parents had died, and apparently he still wore women’s shoes when he needed to go to the muggle world.

“Miss Lovegood, we have an application for guardianship transfer from Wool’s Orphanage to Mr Tom Riddle. It’s somewhat irregular given his youth, but-”

“Yes! Yes yes yes!” Luna said, throwing herself into Tom’s arms. “I want to live with Tom!”

Tom kissed her on the side of the head. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

“Well… your references are excellent - Head Boy, respectable job at the Ministry - and it is customary for siblings to live together after one of them has reached majority,” Mr Stimson said. “Many people sent testimonials of the two of you sharing a sibling bond, and of course it is preferable for Miss Lovegood to live in a magical home if possible.”

“Magic? Magic isn’t real!” Mrs Cole said.

Tom reached out and stopped Mr Stimson from lifting his wand to Obliviate the matron. “He said an _actual_ home, Mrs Cole, not a magical home.”

“Oh. That’s alright then,” she said. “Well, Louanne? We’ll miss you.”

“I won’t miss you, Mrs Cole,” Luna said happily. 

After signing all the paperwork, they went around the corner, and Tom side-along apparated her to a flat that was small and plain and absolutely perfect. Tom made her sit down while he transfigured his tie clip into a hairbrush so he could brush and plait her hair.

“Can I paint pictures on the wall, Tom?”

“Of course, dear.”

“Can I change my name to Riddle?”

“Yes, Luna darling.”

“No, it’s Riddle. I’m Riddle Lovegood now.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Tom said. "You can be Luna Riddle or Luna Lovegood or Luna Lovegood-Riddle."

"Fiiiiine! Luna Riddle," she said.

Tom tied off the end of her plait and kissed the top of her head. “Is there anything you need? Anything at all?”

“Just one thing, Tom.” She tilted her head back to look upside down at her brother. “What are we still doing here? Let’s go get your boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tom: And now that I am approaching my fifth year, I will focus on building the Knights of Walpurgis...  
> Luna: I'm just going to drop into your life now and upset all your plans by giving you someone to care about.  
> Tom: Wait, what?  
> Luna: Hi!  
> Tom: This is unexpected.  
> Luna: Let's go look for blibbering humdingers!  
> Tom: Why haven't you brushed your hair?  
> Luna: I haven't owned a hairbrush since my house exploded.  
> Tom: That was weeks ago!  
> Luna: _shrugs_  
>  Tom: Sit down! _transfigures a hairbrush_ What am I going to do with you?  
> Luna: Plait my hair?  
> Tom: I don't know how to do that.  
> Luna: It's simple arithmancy.  
> Tom: ...  
> Tom: Fine.  
> Tom: I see my after graduation plans need to change...


End file.
